Lecture Escorial Carotta

8/14/2019 Lecture Escorial Carotta

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Francesco Carotta

__________________________________

The Gospels as diegetic Transposition:

A possible Solution to the Aporia Did Jesus exist?

Complutense University Summer Courses 2007

The Escorial 7/31

Did Jesus really exist? The Jesus of history in debate

Director: Antonio Piero, Professor of New Testament Philology

Until little more than two centuries ago nobody questioned the histori-cal existence of Jesus. This was put in doubt by the Enlightenment. Thereason given is that Jesus only appears in the Gospel and that there are

no certain references in the historiography of the time. On the otherhand, the appearance itself of Christianity demands the historical exist-ence of its author. These two arguments neutralize each other recipro-cally and, from the French Revolution to today, we attend a trench war-fare between the defenders and detractors of the historical existence of

Jesus. Between those who consider the Gospel to be true history andthose who think that it is mere diegesis: the latter exposing the incon-gruences of the Gospel, and the former replying that if it had been in-vented it would have been done with less incongruences.

Is there a third possibility which overcomes the contradiction?

Let us suppose as in algebra that the problem is solved and see underwhat conditions that is the case. Lets formulate the hypothesis of a di-egetic transposition of the evangelical account. Actually, if the historicalperson had lived one century earlier elsewhere and the account of hisstory had been relocalized then both trends would be right. This wouldexplain why the historians of the time do not speak of himbecausethey knew him under another nameand also explain the appearanceof Christianity as a universal factwhich would be inconceivable with-out an historical founder. The contradictions, in turn, would be natural,since they inevitably insinuate themselves as a secondary effect of atransposition.

We want to quickly verify the hypothesis of a diegetic transpositionusing the terminology introduced by Grard Genette in Palimpsestes.La littrature au second degr.

1

The fundamental law of the diegetictransposition is the proximization principle, that is to say, the storywhich is retold moves closer to the new public, to its audience. This

principle has three aspects:Geographical, chronological and social approximation.

1 For expository purposes. For a precision and reformulation of the hypothesis, in par-ticular on the author of the supposed transposition, see below.


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Complutense University Summer courses 2007 The Escorial 7/31

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The geographical approximation

implies that an event which orig-inally developed in another place, in another geography, is being relo-calized to the place where it is rewritten. The consequence is often a

change of language, a change of nationality of the characters, and achange of location. For example, when Bulgakov in The Master and Margarita

rewrites the German Faust,

the action develops in Russia andthe story is written in Russian. When James Joyce rewrites the Odyssey,

the action is transferred to Ireland and the Greek Ulysses

ends up beinga Hebrew in Dublin. In the American remake of the well-known lm byAkira Kurosawa, The Seven Samurai

end up being cowboys. The chronological approximation

is necessary in order that the his-torical event, which occurred long ago, may seem to have happened atan almost present time. For example, the saga of the real Johann Faust,who presumably lived between 1466

and 1538,

was published by Jo-hann Spies in 1587

that is more than a century after his birthandupdated at different times, by Goethe in 1808

and 1832,

by ThomasMann in 1947

and Bulgakovs version was published in 1967.

The social approximation

often resets stories starring kings andemperors into popular ambits. The princess becomes Cinderella. Theaim of this social resetting is to turn the historical gure into one of

ours and therefore to appropriate the story and revive it. In this caseUlysses who was king of Ithaca arrives as an Irish medic. Etc.Applying this hypothesis to the aporia of Jesus existence leads us to

posing the question: Which historical gure, man-God, lived a sufcienttime before Jesus so that his story could have been relocalized and re-written? It could not be Alexander the Great because, apart from thefact that his life was different and he lived much earlier, his rewrittenstory is well-known: the Alexander Romance.

If it was not Alexander,which other man-God, closer in history, could it be? Perhaps Julius Cae-sar, born 100

years before Christ, assassinated and divinized, and of whom we do not have any novel or hagiography? Could we verify that?

A characteristic of the diegetic transposition is that in the new ac-count one often nds similar names of persons and places. E.g. in Bul-gakov appears the name of Margarita

because in Faust it is Gretchen

which is the German diminutive of Margarete.

Observe that someone who does not know German does not realizethat Gretchen and Margarita are the same name.

GRETCHEN : MARGARITA

In order to notice it we must observe the derivation:

MARGARETE > MARGARETCHEN > GRETCHEN


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Francesco Carotta The Gospels as diegetic transposition

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Do similar names appear in the two accounts of Caesar and Jesus?

Comparing the history of Caesar from the Rubicon to his assassination

and funeral with the Gospel of Mark which relates the story of Jesusfrom the Jordan to his passion and resurrection, we observe that: Both Caesar and Jesus start their respective careers in neighboring

countries in the north: Gallia

and Galilea.

Both have to cross

a fateful border river:the

Rubiconand the

Jor-dan.

Both

descend along the sea:Caesar along the

Adriatic Sea, Jesusalong the

Galilean Sea.

Both then enter into a city: Cornium and

Cafarnaum. Caesarnds the city

occupied by the enemy, takes it by

siegeand

expelshim; Jesus meets one

possessed by a daemon, which he

expels.

Both narratives seem to follow the same sequence:a) country to the north; b) fateful border river; c) sailing along the

coast; d) entrance into an occupied city; e) expulsion of the enemy.Next we are surprised by the similarity and correspondence of cer-

tain names: Gallia

Galilaea, Cornium

Cafarnaum.GALLIA : GALILAEACORFINIVM : CAFARNAVM

Others however are dissimilar: Rubicon

Jordan;

Adriatic Sea

Ga-lilean Sea;

occupied

and respectively besieged

possessed.

This is interesting and crucial: if the differences turned out to be in-surmountable would they annul the similarities and parallelisms? Letstake a closer look at them:

Rubicon

Jordan:

Caesar does not mention the crossing of the Ru-bicon, however he speaks of the recruitment carried out by Pompeius.

But Mark does not name the Jordan either, and when he does he linksit to the name of John the Baptist. However, he speaks of the Sea of Ga-lilee.

Adriatic Sea

Galilean Sea:

The coast of the Adriatic sea which runsfrom Rimini to Ancona was called Ager Gallicus

(cf. Sena Gallica,

thecurrent Senigallia

). Comparing we then have the acoustic and graphicalnear-coincidence:

MARE GALLIAE : MARE GALILAEAE

Note that the so-called Sea of Galilee is not a sea, but a freshwaterlake, and therefore the term thalassa

is not adequate. And in fact, Lukehas corrected it to limn,

lake. However, the presence of sea inMark, the proto-Gospel, is not necessarily a mistake, but may be thetrace of an occurred diegetic transposition.


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Occupied or besieged possessed:nevertheless, the terms are synon-ymous, because they happen to be the translation of a Latin word: ob-sessus.

OBSESSVS : OBSESSVSMarks diegesis offers us here the opportunity to check whether thisparallelism, obsessus = obsessus,is accidental or systematic: Does thenext occupation and siege on the part of Caesar correspond to the nextpossessed one of Jesus?

Caesar crosses the stormy sea and disembarks on the breakwater of the Ceraunians. Afterwards he tries, to no avail, to lay siege toPompeius and his legions,who remains in his trenches.Jesus also cross-es the stormy sea and lands in the country of the Gerasenes.Ditto, heghts another possessed one,who is called Legion,and whom nobodycan bind because he stays in the tombs.

Here also, we have the same sequence and similar names: to the al-ready known obsessus = obsessusis now added legion = Legion.

LEGION : LEGION And once again we have different terms: trenchesand tombs.Which,

however, in Latin sound similar and confusable:MVNIMENTA : MONVMENTA

As for the Ceraunians

Gerasenes,the copyists of Mark realize thatGerasa is far from the Sea of Galilee, located more than 30 milesaway, inside the Decapolis. And therefore we nd the early variant Ga-darenes.This way, with Gadara, were approaching, even if we are stillve miles off the so-called sea. So far that other copyists have pre-ferred to switch to Gergesenes,with the possibility of referring Gergesato certain ruins on the edge of the lake.

CERAVNII : GERASENI CERAVNII : GADARENI

CERAVNII : GERGESENI (Note that the three New Testament variants are not phoneticallyand graphically closer to one another than they are distant from theclassical source respectively).

And here we touch upon a typical problem of diegetic transposi-tions. The choice of names to replace is based on consonance, but thenames of places that most resemble the original ones do not always fallin a topographically logical place, but out of the way. The fact that thegeography and topography of Mark are notoriously incoherent, with a

Jesus jumping from here to there, without a logical route, can be evi-dence that a diegetic transposition has been carried out.

The most discussed problem, the very long and useless detour, whichMark has Jesus take by passing through Tire, Sidon and the Decapolis


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Francesco Carotta The Gospels as diegetic transposition 5

in order to go from one village to another located relatively nearby onthe shore of the Sea of Galileeas if in order to go from Madrid to theEscorial one would make the loop through Valencia, Barcelona and the

Basque Countryis so obvious that modern commentators consider ita Markan construction. But these seemingly absurd places are, in thelogic of the diegetic transposition, the more probable ones, the residuallectiones difciliores.And, lo what a coincidence, they are the only plac-es through which Caesar passednotoriously when he moved from Al-exandria (bellum Alexandrinum)to Pontus, against Pharnaces (venividi vici).And therefore the foreign bodies Tire and Sidonwould ac-tually be the hinges which made it possible to anchor the diegetic trans-position in its new geographical context: from Gallia to Galilea.

Of all the matches we have investigated this is just a rst example.However, continuing comparing the two diegeses forward to the end of the Gospel of Mark, one continues observing the same parallels:

To Bithynia corresponds Bethany, to Nicomedes Nicodemus,toMria Mary,to Cassius Longinuscorresponds the centurion Longinus,etcetera.

BITHYNIA : BETHANIANICOMEDES : NICODEMVSMARIA : MARIALONGINVS : LONGINVSOf course there are also differences: e.g. Cassius Longinuspierced

Caesar with a dagger, the centurion Longinusinstead used a lance. Butas philologists have already noted, there is a relationship between thename of Longinusand lance, which in Greek is called lonch, Longinusbeing interpreted as the one of the lance.

(By the way, a test in passing: Caesar was stabbed by the dagger of Cassius Longinuson the Ides of March, i.e. the 15 th. The other Longi-

nus, the one who pierced the side of the Lord with the lance, was can-onized and sainted (sic!). Question: When could be his feast day? Yes,exactly on the 15 th of March: Saint Longinus,martyr another coin-cidence!)

We will again nd other names that do not match at rst glance, forexample the traitor, which both have, but Caesars is called Brutus,andin the Gospel instead Judas.

If we look more closely, we note that the traitor is called DecimusIunius, that his family name Iunius can be called Iunas in Greek (anal-ogous to Lucius > Lukas), and that therefore we have:

IOUNA : IOUDA the only difference being in the direction of the last stroke of the D

with respect to the N .


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oating ones), of ships, of boats, is interpreted as a bathing place.Transposition by reduction.

ZELA : SILOAM

PONTVS : NATATORIAThe changes of meaning in these six sentences are evidence of Marksmethod of transposing: The miraculous victories of Caesar become thevictorious miracles of Jesus. Thus the social proximization brings abouta change of profession: emperor turns into thaumaturge.

Following the same procedure Caesars conict with various Caeciliiand Claudiitransforms into the healing of the blind (lat. caecus= blind)and lame(lat. claudus= lame). The most exquisite transformation is un-dergone by Asinius Pollio,Caesars legate(in Spain and Sicily), who isbeing transformed into a tied asss colt (by confusion of legatewith ligated ).

CAECILII : the blind CLAVDII : the lameASINIVS POLLIO : asss colt LEGATVS > LIGATVS : ligated (tied)This move from a proper name to a common one reveals to be a con-

stant in Mark. Thus Pontifex is to be found as carpenter as if it wasanalyzed into ponti-fex,the bridge builder:

PONTIFEX > PONTI-FEX> bridge builder> carpenter

Both narratives of the passionfollow the same sequence as well:With respect to Caesar we have: (a) the conspiracy, (b) the assassina-

tion, (c) the posthumous trial, (d) the cremation.With respect to Jesus: (a) the conspiracy, (b) the capture, (c) the trial,

(d) the crucixion.The main discrepancies are rst that Caesar was assassinated at the

time of the attack, whereas Jesus was arrested only: but there was aclash with blank weapons.As far as the trial is concerned Jesus is supposed to be alive, but

strangely silent, and when he nally opens his mouth, what does he say?Essentially only this: Thou sayest itthat is, he says nothing.

Another discrepancy is that Caesar was cremated and Jesus cruci-ed, but it is noteworthy that in Latin cremomeans to burn and thehomophonous Greek krem instead means to hang, to crucify.

CREMO : KREM KREMW The pyre is not found in the Gospel, but oddly enough in its place

we nd a useless and unstable myrrh of the crucixion, seeing that it isofferedwith wine? with vinegar? converted into gall?but he rejectsit: If nothing happened, wherefore is it reported? However, it should be


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noted that pyre and myrrh resemble each other in Greek and thereforeare typically confusable because of the similar shape of the P and M :

PURA : MURAThere is even a manifest diegetic transposition here, which is re-

vealed by the evangelist himself: the myrrh and other spices are used asthe manner of the Jews is to bury. 8 Indication that the story was adapt-ed to the custom (that is, to a new one: it was not necessary to describethe original one, because everybody knew it).

However, it is known that exactly during the period from the deathof Caesar through to the redaction of the Gospel, the custom of crema-tion gradually ceded its place to inhumation. The rst one of the impe-rial family was the pious Poppea Sabina, the wife of Nero. And it wasConstantine himself, the rst Christian emperor, who introduced inhu-mation for the Caesars as well.

As far as the crucixion is concerned, it is ignored, but the rst oneoccurred with Caesar himself. At his funeral his body lay in a shrinemade after the model of the temple of Venus Genetrix, placed on therostra, with a tropaeum at its head, on which hung his blood-stainedrobe; the consul Antony lifted it with his lance making it utter; and a

wax efgy of his martyred body was hoisted above the bier and shownto the people who, seeing the wounds, revolted against the murderers. 9This was considered his postumous victory, his resurrection, if we judgeby the coin minted to celebrate the event: 10

(We note that it shows the same structure as we have in the LyingChrist).

8 Jn 19:40.9 Suet. Jul.84; App. BC 2.146.610; 2.147.612.10 Denarius of Buca, 44 B.C.; B.M.C. R 4161 (Crawford 480/1). Cf. Battenberg, C.

(1980). Pompeius und Caesar Persnlichkeit und Programm in ihrer Mnzpropa- ganda, Dissertation, Marburg/Lahn , p. 16871 .

1.a Ov: Venus Genetrix; Rv:Cremation of Caesar; 1.b Figures of Good Friday


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What a tropaeum looked like in the time of Caesar, we know thatfrom coins

(Note on the obverse Venus Genetrix, the divine ancestral mother of

the Julians, with her son Amor on her shoulder, or, in his place, thenumber lii (52 ): the age of Caesar, who is presented as her son).

and some little gures

: like a cross.

2.a, 2.b Denarii of Caesar, 48 B.C.

3. Denarius of Caesar, 46 B.C.

4. Miniature Tropaeum (Berlin Charlottenburg)


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How a tropaeumwas hoisted can be observed on a cameo:

Graphic reconstruction of what one could see on the Forum: 11

11 Antonius acting on the rostra during the funeral oration. View to the south-westfrom the Basilica Aemilia; in the background temple of Saturnus and Capitolium.Drawing: Pol du Closeau, Utrecht.

5. Cameo (detail) Augustean age

6. Sketch for a reconstruction of Caesars funeral Pol du Closeau


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Scenic reconstruction: 12

12 Rehearsals for a documentary, by the Brotherhood of the Memory, Rascafra: in stu-dio in Madrid, and in the Town Hall Plaza in Rascafra. Photos: Daniel Martn, Madrid ( 710 ); Tommie Hendriks ( 11 ), Utrecht.Sculpture of Christ Caesar: Agustn Sanz De La Fuente, Rascafra.

7.11. Reconstruction of the funeral of Caesar.


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12. Good Friday in Bercianos de Aliste Photography by Xavier Ferrer Chust


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For those who know the rituals of the Semana Santa (Holy Week),particularly in rural environments, these are not strange images.

Let us confront them with what is considered the most ancient imageof the crucixion in a narrative context we have, the famous ivory boxconserved in London, of the Vth cent.

At rst glance some anomalous elements surprise: Longinus gives hislance blow in a position as if it were a dagger thrust, and to the left side,into the heart, not to the right as several centuries later it would be rep-resented according to the idea that Longinus did not kill Caesar, butonly wanted to see if he was dead. 13 Here Longinus seems to be killingChrist. He wears a pileus, the cap symbolizing liberty, on his head, thesame that Marcus Brutus and Cassius Longinus put on their coins be-tween two daggers in order to boast about having murdered Caesar.

Christ does not hang, but seems to oat, without a suppedaneum,suspended only on two nails through the hands defying the force of

gravity. Which, however, the artist knew well as can be seen with Judas13 Vladimir Gurewich, Observations on the Iconography of the Wound in Christs

Side, with Special Reference to Its Position. Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol.20, No. 3/4 (Jul. - Dec., 1957), pp. 358-362.

13. Relief of ivory (London), Italic, 420/430 A.D. , Crucixion of Christ:(right) blow of Longinus to the heart; (left) suicide of Judas.


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who hangs (look at the difference in the feet). Naturally one can explainthis anomalous position of Christ on the cross by seeing it as an antici-pation of the resurrection. But if its origin was the exposition of a wax

efgy on a tropaeum,the position would be logical since the wax gureswere supported by an internal structure of wood, which allows sus-pending it from only two pointsas we have veried with the efgy of Caesar (see above).

This anomalous manner of a oating crucixion is not unique,but rather conserved throughout the whole rst millennium:

The Christ on the cross does not begin to hang until the Renaissance,and at once hangs more and moredespite the fact that in antiquitythey knew how to represent really crucied ones, whom they let hang,as we can see on this orphic signet stone and gems from the IIIrd cent.(see g. 20-21, next page).

But notice that the traditionally structured Christs of Good Fridaycontinue not to hang, till today (see above g. 12 ).

The crucixion of Christ remained anomalous and contested. TheCreed of the Council of Nicaea, in its original form only recites suf-

14. Carolingian, IXth cent.; 15. Xth cent.; 16. miniature, 975 A.D.

17. San Damiano, XIIth cent.; 18. Giotto, 1305 ; 19. Rubens, 1620


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fered; and the crucixion and Pontius Pilate do not appear until theConstantinopolitan Council. 14 The Gospel of Peter, middle of the 2ndcentury, speaks, yes, of crucixion, but he remained silent, as if he didnot suffer pain. 15 The Koran has retained the memory of those Chris-tian diatribes when it says: they did not crucify him, but it only ap-peared to them . 16 And we can ask ourselves whether the rejection

of the crucied oneand strangely not of the crosswhich endures tothis day, is not the continuation of that old disagreement.

If the hypothesis of a diegetic transposition can explain the anomaly of the crucixion of Christ, how could it be explained that in the case of Caesar one could think of a crucixion?

Several concomitant factors acted in favor of the perception of theexposition of Caesars body as crucixion.

The rst was without a doubt that the murderer Cassius Longinushad a reputation for having crucied a defector in Judea (Pitholaos),eight years earlier, after the defeat of Crassus. Thus, the representationof Caesars body covered in blood, murdered by the same crucier,raised above the bier and fastened to a tropaeum, evoked the crucix-ion.

14 Symbolum Nicaenum,original form, A.D. 325 : paqovnta passus est; SymbolumConstantinopolitanum,forma recepta, A.D. 381 : staurwqev nta te uper hmwn epiPontivou Pilav tou, kai paqov nta kai; tafev nta. et crucixus est pro nobis sub PontioPilato [passus et sepultus est].

15 Evangelium Petri, 3. Kai hnegkon duo kakourgou", kai estaurwsan ana meson autwn ton kurion auto" de esiwpa, w" mhdena ponon ecwn.

16 Koran, Sura 4, 157.

20. Orpheos Bakkikos, signet stone, IIIrd cent.; 21. Crucied one, gem, IIIrd cent.


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The second crucixion, not imaginary, but real, came few days afterthe funeral of Caesar when the same Mark Anthony who had recitedthe laudatio funebrisfor Caesar under the conditions we have seen, had

some of the fervent ones crucied, who attempted to lynch the murder-ers of Caesar still present in the city, whom however he, as consul, hadassured amnesty. The two crucixions could not help but be confusedin the collective imagination. The one of Caesar, a crucixio imaginaria,as well as the funus imaginarium,in which a wax gured was used inplace of the absent or not visible body, was confused with the actualcrucixion of the Caesarians who demanded the punishment of the as-sassins, both carried out by the same Mark Anthony immediately oneafter another.

Clearly, we have here the precedent of the crucixions carried out acentury later by Titus in Jerusalem. Those also allowed the anchoringof the later diegetic transposition after the Jewish war in the denitiveredaction of the gospels. Though Antonius had crucied in Rome, hewas also active in Jerusalem where he built the Tower Antonia.

The main reason, however, seems to be judicial-technical: the trium-virs walled up the place where Caesar had been murdered and declaredthe Ides of March dies parricidii, dies ater, nefastus,and prohibited all

celebrations on that day. The consequence was that in this manner theday and place of the death were removed from the memory of Caesarand the veneration of the Divus Iulius, and had to be moved to anotherday and place: the exposition of the martyred body in form of a waxgure then lent itself to a reinterpretation as crucixion, in substitutionof the negated murder. This was the fundamental preparation of theground for a successive diegetic transposition.

In addition, we rarely nd the name Rome written in the ancienttexts: the urbs was enough. But urbs means city: which city? Jerusalem,too, was a city, even also the city. And there were Romans who cru-cied there as well. And there were Jews in Rome as well, and notori-ously at the funeral of Caesar, where they were mourning beside thepyre. 17 For this reason the transposition of the crucixion from one cityto the other was totally credible.

The diegetic transposition applied to the texts does not to the sameextent affect the iconography which proves to be more resistant tochanges because it is more closely tied to tradition. Despite the fact thatMatthew and Luke attribute two Old Testamentary genealogies (by theway: two different ones!) to Jesus, in the Christian iconography Jesus isconstantly represented with classical features. If we had the time we

17 Suet. Jul.84 .


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could present the Christian iconography in relation to its so-called pa-gan predecessors. We could show how there has not only been a use of columns and capitals of Roman temples in the Christian churches (g.

22 ), but a reutilization of all the iconographic themes of the cult of Di-vus Iulius and Divi Filius.

The veried parallelisms in the texts and in the iconography with re-spect to Caesar and Jesus do not annul the differences. These differencesare, however, a requirement of the laws of diegetic transposition:

Geographical approximation:the scene is moved from Gallia toGalilea, however the names remain similar.

Chronological approximation:it makes Jesus born not long beforethe writing of the gospels, but exactly 100 years after Caesar; andmakes him die on the same day: the 15 th of March and the 15 th of Nisan.

Social approximation:Jesus is no longer a warrior-politician likeCaesar, but a preacher thaumaturge like those who preached him. Buthe continues to expel demons which is the theological and absoluteform of warfare, and he continues to be the son of God.

22. Temple of Antoninus and Faustina in the Forum Romanum,converted into the church of Saint Laurence in Miranda.


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The diegetic transposition hypothesis allows to explain the contra-dictions found in the Gospel. To the contradictions already seen, the fol-lowing can be added. The inexplicable baptism of Jesus, which cannot

be due to penance because He had neither sin nor reasons for repen-tance, explains itself if we know that the origin of the baptism were theimproper recruitments of Pompey; he had to repent his sin, and do pen-ance: they cut off his head (Johns and Pompeys ... another coinci-dence!)

The result of this investigation is that the original Jesus was Divus Iu-lius, a popularis, who had to make civil war against the oppressiveRome in order to create a more just world for all the oppressed people,and who for this reason was murdered, and that is why they deied himand all the people considered him to be one of ours, which set thestage for transposition: because being one of ours for all, he could as-sume any nationality, even the Galilean, if not the Jewish one: what ac-tually happened under the Flavians a century later.

Setting the attention on the usually ignored cult of Divus Iulius willallow us to solve the problem of discontinuity, the alleged sudden pas-sage from paganism to Christianity. Even the supposed sharp breakwith paganism made by Constantine can only be explained from thecult of Divus Iulius from which it adopted the symbols.

This underlying continuity will help us to also afrm that the tradi-tion is more resistant to rewriting and has preserved original elements,as we can verify in the rural rites of the Holy Week. If scripture revealsitself as a rewriting, it is less reliable than the tradition. Then, the maximof sola Scripturain the past four centuries has led to devaluing tradi-tion, the other and more trustworthy pillar of the faith.

Demonstrating that the Gospel is not an invention, nor a forgery, but

a transposition, we also save the honor of the evangelists, who did noth-ing else than to reupdate a remote story, adapting it to the changing con-ditions of their time, but trying to save the essential message which islove your enemies.

Everybody thinks that Julius Caesar, the hard military leader did notpractice this. The clementia Caesaris,well known to the ancients, evento the Church Fathers, 18 is forgotten. And Jesus is thought to havepreached peace. So, who said this sentence?

18 Orosio, Hist. 6.17.1 , presents as known fact that Julius Caesar died assassinated forhaving founded a political system based on clemency, against the example of his pre-decessors: Caesar Romam rediit: ubi dum Reipublicae statum contra exemplamaiorum clementer instaurat, auctoribus Bruto et Cassio, conscio etiam plurimosenatu, in curia viginti et tribus vulneribus confossus interiit.


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Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to sendpeace, but a sword .19And, who forgave his enemies saying this?

Let us, therefore, Senators, remain united with condence, forget-ting all past events as if they had been brought to pass by a divineplan, and begin to love each otherwithout suspicion as if we werenew citizens. So that you will treat me as a father,enjoying my careand protection without fearing anything unpleasant, and I will takethought for you as for my children, praying that all your deeds mayalways be the best, and yet enduring perforce the limitations of hu-man nature, rewarding the good citizens with tting honors and cor-recting the rest as far as that may be possible. 20

If the veried matches are not casual, this investigation proves bothcamps right: the Gospel proves to be real history, which underwent a di-egetic transposition.

Did Jesus really exist? Yes, and he was diegetically transposed.

***The diegetic transposition as it appears to have taken place in the Gos-pel, is sui generis,in the sense that the author of the Gospel does notseem to be a person, a unique and identiable author, who wrote a newtext, a story inspired by a preexisting history, but rather a process of re-writing (rcriture)21 , which goes from the Historiaeof Asinius Polliothe original text is lost, but preserved through being used by other his-toriographersto the Gospel of Mark,which constitutes the canonical,Christian form of the Life of Divus Iulius:incomplete translations withLatin terms left in the Greek text, which were then taken as Greek onesat the time of the act of copyinga process similar to the one observed

by F. Wutz for the translation of the Septuagint;22

hence the rewriting,which makes the copying process start again, new mistakes that willaccumulate, new rewriting, and so on: until the xing of the canonicaltext. The name itself of the protoevangelist, Mark, not by chance typi-cally Roman, would not indicate the author, but the patron, Marc An-thony, Flamen Divi Iulii,the high priest of the divinized Caesar, whose

19 Mt 10:34.20 Dio Cass. HR 43.17.4-5.21 Comparable to those observed in the medieval hagiographies, cf. Goullet, M. / Hei-

nzelmann. M. (Hg.) ( 2003 ). La rcriture hagiographique dans lOccident mdivale. Transformations formelles et idologiques.Beihefte der Francia, Bd. 58,Herausgegeben vom Deutschen Historischen Institut Paris.

22 Wutz, F. ( 1925 ). Die Transkriptionen von der Septuaginta bis zu Hieronymus,Berlin/ Stuttgart/Leipzig.


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tendency he sheds light onMarks counterpart, John, on the contrarypresents the bias of the youngCaesar, Divi Filius,Son of God: Cae-sar Augustus, the exclusive heir: All things that the Father hath are

mine (John 16:15 ).That process was necessary because the primitive community, theUrgemeinde of Mark, was apparently formed by the children of thechildren of the veterans, settled in colonies by Caesar (and later by Cae-sar Augustus). A bilingual community in the East, where the Greek re-sisted the Latin more than the Gallic did in the West, gradually replacingit, and the Latin only survived as language of command of the legions.That is what is observed in the Gospel of Mark, whose evident and la-tent latinisms reveal to be sermo castrensis,the language of the militarycamp. 23

According to our analysis the latinisms of Mark belong to the oldestlayer of the text, while the aramaisms belong to the last layer. And be-cause the hebraisms of Matthew and the septuagintisms of Luke are lat-er, it can be concluded that the historical journey of the text went fromRome to Jerusalem and not vice versa.

This conforms to the tradition, which has always claimed that theGospel of Mark was written in Latin in Rome 12 years after the ascen-sion of the Lord. 24 And as chance would have it, 12 years after thedeath of Caesar, Asinius Pollio wrote his Historiae,the basis for the re-writing of Mark.

Well then: in dubiis stat traditioin doubt, lets stay with the tradi-tion.

www.carotta.de

(Translation: Joseph Horvath)

23 Blass, F., Debrunner, A. & Rehkopf, F. ( 17 1990). Grammatik des neutestamentli-chen Griechisch,Gttingen, p. 69. Couchoud, P.-L. (1926). Lvangile de Marc a-t-il t crit en Latin?, Revue de lHistoire des Religions,94 . Cancik, H. (1975).Christus Imperator. In H. v. Stietencron (Ed.), Der Name Gottes, Dsseldorf,p. 120.

24 Eujaggevlion kata; Mav rkon. ej gravfh rJ wmai>sti; ejn Rwvmh/meta; ibV e[th th' " aj nalhvyew" tou' ku. Fam. 13 of the Datumsvermerke, cited by Zuntz, G. (1984). Wann wurdedas Evangelium Marci geschrieben? In H. Cancik (Ed.), Markus-Philologie,Tbin-gen, p. 60.


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Lecture Escorial Carotta

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